


Clandestinity

by meilleur



Series: Clandestinity [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action & Romance, Ambiguous Gender Penn, Angst, Blood and Violence, Caretaking, Graphic Description, Gun Violence, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm not a doctor, Interrogation, It's not this bad guys I just want to cover all the bases, Major Character Injury, Misunderstandings, Moral Dilemmas, Non-Consensual Touching, Non-Explicit Sex, Other, POV First Person, Post-Apocalypse, Some Plot, Strangers to Lovers, These tags make it seem worse than it is, Threats of Violence, Time Skips, Torture, Unreliable Narrator, vague backstory, vague timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:46:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25199485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meilleur/pseuds/meilleur
Summary: His composure slipped, a nasty snarl appearing. It was the most emotion I’d seen from him since we first met six months ago. “Don’t say that! Don’t say it like that! What do you know? How dare you judge me for an act I’ve never done and probably never will? It’s my life, damnit, and I want a say in how it’ll end! Not in some petty fistfight or bleeding out on the streets after a raid, but with my honor and my choice. Those people will not actually kill me because I’ll have already been dead! They will merely save me the trouble of wasting my own bullets!”It's a post-apocalypse world and two strangers try to navigate their way through it. Obstacles appear in many forms.Penn (narrator) is not given a gender. I leave that up to you.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Undisclosed, R/Penn
Series: Clandestinity [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988836
Kudos: 3





	Clandestinity

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if this is supposed to be a character study or a world-building exercise, but either way I'm officially cleared of writer's block.
> 
> (Long note at the end!)

The fire crackled and danced along the eroding walls of what used to be a library. A pile of books lie in the center of the heat, pages curling and crumbling. We ate in silence, spoons scraping against the inside of the cans and the silent squelch of beans. They were our last ones; we’d have to go hunting tomorrow and find some real food. I was getting sick of eating out of busted soup cans.

The person next to me was staring into the fire, can empty and tossed to the side, spoon once again clipped back onto his pack. He spoke very little, but didn’t mind at all when I would ramble on for hours about nothing in particular. It would creep me out if we weren’t already trudging through miles and miles of abandoned cities and even emptier countryside.

I wasn’t sure if the person next to me even had a name. Granted, I didn’t give mine either, but his own ‘R’ still left many questions.

“You’re staring.” His smooth voice broke the ambience.

“Sorry,” My own voice crackled with disuse.

“Something you wanna ask?” His eyes never left the fire.

“I didn’t want to sound rude.” In truth, I didn’t. Asking a question like that was a step too far. We hadn’t known each other for long.

“I’m not easy to offend,” he finally looked at me, dark eyes giving away nothing, “Ask your question and stop staring.”

It was a once-in-a-lifetime offer, I knew. He had thin patience and I had already broken clean through.

I changed the question at the last minute.

“Are you injured?” I blurted, not as suave as I’d hoped. And then adding rather unhelpfully: “The bandage.” I gave a vague gesture towards his right leg.

His eyebrow raised, yet he subconsciously glanced down to the cloth wrapped around his leg anyway. A tongue ran across his lips, eyes looking back into the fire.

“No,” Internally, I kicked myself. “Now go to bed.”

Before I could protest, he turned over on his side — his pack as a pillow — and didn’t say anything more. Soon, I followed suit.

* * *

We didn’t know what to expect when crossing that eight-lane freeway, but an ambush should’ve been in the top five. R wasted no time in dropping low and covering behind a rusted SUV, but I took longer than expected to find a hiding place that wasn’t an easily-destroyed frame of a car. Sharp whistles flew past me that all came from different areas. When I finally found a spot behind an abandoned ambulance, R had already moved the fight further in.

Instead of my pistol, I took out my hunting rifle. The bullet count was low, but I excelled better at long-range than close combat. I sniped five off of R’s blind spots while he took point. The fight ended in no time, but my fingers were numb from the elements. He found me sliding my rifle back into my stitched-on holster.

“Good?”

I nodded, “Nothing but a few scratches, I think.”

He moved his jaw, taking in the rusted ambulance — its letters barely legible after years of weather and burning sun. A moment later he was prying open the double doors at the back and hopping inside. The vehicle lurched and swayed with his every movement. I heard him search through drawers and cabinets followed by slams of frustration.

“Empty,” He reamerged, tucking something into a small pocket on his cargo pants. “We found more band-aids at that library a month ago.”

I smiled, “For papercuts, probably.”

* * *

“Time will tell, my friend,” Tom whispered to R as they returned from the old man’s armory. I sat up straighter in my seat, putting down the old magazine that showed faded pictures of the world that used to be. Grinning faces and eyes oblivious to what would come. Summer hacks on how to deal with mosquitos and 10 different ways to use a pool noodle — whatever that was. It made me nostalgic for something I never had.

R noticed the magazine as I set it back down on the tool cart. “Never did like magazines; threw them out whenever they came in the mail.”

I gave him a doubtful smirk, because there was _no way_ he was that old.

Tom scoffed, “You were, what, _ten_? Lay off the seniority for fellas who actually owned a shipping address.”

Continuing the previous thought, he said: “My mother hated me for that.” R was smiling then. I don’t think I’d seen him smile before that moment — it was so personal that I almost looked away.

“I didn’t realise you remembered,” I teased, “ _I_ don’t even remember.”

He let out a sigh that made him sound more aged than he was. “It’s rough being too young to remember the old days, but too old to sympathize with the kids today.”

“Mhm.” I was born only eight years before. The winter of, to be precise, but I didn’t actually know the date. My mother had died and my father fell too far to tell me of my childhood or of the days before the fall. But I was always “his snow child” and celebrated my birthday sometime when the first snowfall hit.

When we left Tom’s with full gear and equally full stomachs, R was stopped at the door. In quiet tones, with a sincerity I wouldn’t expect from someone who was so sure of R’s expertise, Tom spoke:

“Take care, R. I’ll see you soon.” It ended with a two-handed shake.

* * *

We’ve seen the symbol before.

Back then, we wrote it off as a hunter group wanting to look professional. But now it means something more. I look to R, and his pensive expression says many things. He drops the sleeve of the dead man’s shirt and runs a hand down his face. He lets out a long exhale.

“This is, uh, getting serious, huh?” I try to break the tense silence in the subway. Water drips from the ceiling and thin puddles surround our feet. It smells dank and musty, but the air is cool and the deep pools of water that cover the train tracks are freezing.

R slides down a tiled wall and lands in one of the few dry patches on the ground. I sit next to him, but am not lucky enough to find a dry spot. A cold dampness seeps through my jeans.

“I didn’t want to get dragged into this mess.” He confesses, resting an arm on top of his knee, reclining into a more comfortable position. “Because now you’re here.”

It wasn’t his intent, I’m sure, but at that moment I felt appreciated. He cared enough to try and keep me from solving problems I didn’t even know existed, even if it meant he couldn’t participate either.

Still, I’m curious. “If I wasn’t here… would you be tracking them down?”

He looks over at me, and for a moment I wonder if I’ve crossed a line.

“Yes.” It was clipped, with a slight hint of shame. “It would’ve been my last act.”

I let out a gasp, peeling myself away from the wall to stare directly at him. “A suicide mission?”

His composure slipped, a nasty snarl appearing. It was the most emotion I’d seen from him since we first met six months ago. “Don’t say that! Don’t say it like that! What do you know? How dare you judge me for an act I’ve never done and probably never will? It’s my life, damnit, and I want a say in how it’ll end! Not in some petty fistfight or bleeding out on the streets after a raid, but with my honor and my choice. Those people will not actually kill me because I’ll have already been dead! They will merely save me the trouble of wasting my own bullets!”

His voice echoed throughout the tunnels until fading away. Silence settled and I reeled back. Walking to the other side of the platform and sitting at the edge, I let my feet dangle and skim the surface of the water.

_What do I know?_

* * *

We move slower than before. R looks sluggish as we traverse through city after city. I chalk it up to being on the road for so long, because I myself feel drained. The current city looks exactly the same as every single one before it, with one main difference being a mostly-intact hotel. It looked to be a hotel frequented by the upper class — as R explained. The higher levels even had the wax still on the floors. I open a door to room 103 and peer inside. It’s large: two twin sized beds, an L shaped couch, a breakfast nook, a desk, and a bathroom with a shower and tub. The bathroom is completely useless with its empty pipes, the breakfast nook has expired coffee packets, the couch is missing some legs, and the desk is a splinter hazard.

But the beds are fine. They smell of mothballs and stale air but the mattresses are still soft and the blankets are clean. I guide a tired R to the first bed and sit him down; the mattress creaks under the weight but holds. I give him an artificially preserved granola bar, some water, and order him to lay down. His face is pale, he can barely bite through the oats, but I don’t leave his side til he does. When he finally falls asleep, I wet a towel from our canteen and wipe down his arms and left leg. His right shin is completely covered by a wrap and his pants cover his thighs. I take off his heavy boots and set them upside-down on the floor.

When I get back to his face, I stop. His pink skin is slowly coming back, but his cheeks are hollow and his eyes have deep bags. I sit on the bed, staring, and the towel in my hands dries stiff.

When I wake up later, it’s to the soft rumble of thunder outside the cracked window. The building groans and shifts under the wind and rain. I should fear the building's collapse, but I don't. I am content in the arms of R, who stirs awake and yawns sleep from his body. He must feel the weight in his arms, because he suddenly looks down to me. I look up at him.

We kiss in that ruined hotel, in a city that no longer has a name. We move to the sounds of the rain and the hum of electricity in the air. And as the sun once again shines through the clouds, we stare at each other through heavy pants — naked and exposed, his bandage pressed against my skin.

* * *

My hands are tied behind my back, and I feel a cramp starting in my shoulders. Blood drips down my face, hair matting to my forehead. I can only see through one eye — the other one bruised and caked with blood. R was nowhere to be seen. The room was lit with a single incandescent bulb, grime and mold covering the cement walls. Either we were in some military fort or a basement.

The door slams open and in comes R, half-conscious and dripping with fluids. He’s dragged by two men while another one follows behind. R would — much later — tell me that this man’s name is Victor. Victor’s carrying a wrench.

“Oh, _R_ ,” he sneers, toying with the tool, tossing it from one hand to another. “You thought you and your friend over here could walk into our territory and get away scotch-free?” His voice is light, young, but his eyes and the way he holds himself shows authority.

R is silent, creating a puddle of rust-colored liquid on the floor.

“ _Pathetic_.” Victor finished the word with a well-aimed swing of the wrench to R’s bandaged leg.

R lets out a scream, loud enough to reverberate off the walls and make me flinch. Tears stream down his eyes and trail into his open mouth. I would scream like that too if someone hit my shins with a metal tool.

“Stop—!” I choke out, my ribs hurting at the sudden intake of air.

The man turns to me, “And _you._ I don’t know who you are, but if R was traveling at your side then you must be… important.”

R coughs out something that sounds like a protest. It’s enough to jump Victor into action. He throws me from my position against the wall, placing his heavy boot on my head and _pressing—_

I wake up to R’s panicked face. He yells at me, stops to look up, shoots at some unknown target, then returns back. I hear nothing. After a few more shouts he gives up, picks up my feet, and then I’m moving.

I don’t remember what happened in that cold room, but R is with me — alive — and suddenly it doesn’t matter. I force myself to wake up, to start moving. We’re ducked behind two wooden crates, R peeking around the corner to empty rounds at enemies as I get into a sitting position. I immediately regret it.

My whole body hurts. My ribs ache, my head hurts, and dried blood coats my arms and face. I use spit to wet the crust around my right eye, and it finally opens. My vision swims and I can barely hear the gunshots. I reach my left hand up to my ear and pull away to find more blood.

I call out for R, but I can’t hear myself and my throat is sore. He doesn’t appear to be as deaf as me, because he immediately turns to look. He starts speaking fast, bullets flying past the crate where he used to be.

There’s a weight in my hands; R’s handed me a scoped revolver. The modification looks ugly on the small gun, adds extra weight, and is held together with adhesive. I test the scope on the wall and find it accurately calibrated. There’s only five bullets.

R has stopped to tie a piece of fabric around his arm, looking pained. How long has he been fighting?

I peek over the top of the crate and see four targets awaiting in different locations. Two are almost completely hidden from view behind door frames, but the other two are more exposed in their position behind an upturned table. It’s a struggle to move my fingers — they feel broken — but I still only use one bullet per target.

The one behind the left door frame leans out and shoots; A bullet whizzes next to my ear.

There’s a tug on my shirt and I take that as a sign to duck. R returns fire and the next two fall. He motions for us to move, leading the way into the next room. It’s empty, a dead body in the door and a window leading outside. It’s large enough for us to fit through. I go first, then hoist him up and over until we’re both standing in an alley.

R collapses, and my hearing must be coming back because I hear his body thud to the floor before I see it. He cries out in pain, and I notice that there’s far more to his injuries than a bullet to his arm. It comes back to me then: the encounter in that grimey room, the leering man, the wrench. I look over his body and notice several bruises on his face. There's leaking wounds from somewhere in his hair. His ribs are colored purple and yellow, and finally, a stab wound right through his thigh.

My hands are bathed up to my forearms in his blood. It makes it hard to grab my gun as more people fill the area. I tuck us away behind a dumpster. My vision swims and I waste the last three bullets taking out one target. I take R’s pistol from his hands and he grabs at the air, mumbling something unintelligible.

I can’t use the gun. Blood makes my hands slippery and even after I reload there was no way for me to cock it. My hands slip down the slide and soon the weapon is painted red. I tuck it in the waist of my jeans and rush the last two targets. Two sharp pains in my legs, and I know that once the adrenaline wears off I’ll be limping.

I’m the one dragging R now, and we make it as far as the woods until I pass out next to him under a pine.

* * *

“I’ve got it!”

R looks at me with doubt.

“It’s a bad tattoo, isn’t it?” I’m confident in my guess, but R guffaws and shakes his head.

“Where in the world would I get a tattoo?” It's a genuine question.

I shrug, “I know lots of people who’ve gotten tattoos. One of my old friends did ‘em for a living.”

“I know hunters and raiders like to get them to create unity and whatnot, but never just for pleasure.” He repositions his pack, the items inside rattling.

“So you’re telling me that you’re _not_ covering up a bad tattoo?”

For the tenth time today, he sighs while nodding. “I’m not covering up a bad tattoo.”

I huff, “The only thing left on my list is that it’s a fashion statement. Meant to make you look tough and battle-aged, when really there’s nothing there and you’re just posturing.”

“Posturing.” He doesn’t say it like a question, but I still hear it there.

“Well, to _other_ people, because _I_ know that you’re not compensating for your lack of skills.”

“Damn right.”

I think some more. He’s worn it too long with too little reactions that it couldn’t be a wound, the way it always changes in form means that he must be unwrapping it a lot without my knowledge, and he won’t let me anywhere near it. It couldn’t be anything but…

My mouth twitches, the beginnings of a scowl. It has to be a mark of a brotherhood, and the most likely one being in the shape of the very organisation they’re currently tracking down.

I remember the conversation in the subway months ago. R’s confession of hunting them down for his “last act.”

He must’ve been lying. Why hunt them down by yourself? He doesn’t seem like the type to conduct a suicide mission. He’s in his prime, healthy, with a world of opportunities. I decide then and there, that he’s hiding the organisation’s mark under all that wrapping. Is he leading me to my death? Am I even worth it?

“Penn?” His voice snaps me out of my thoughts. I hadn’t realised I had stopped in the middle of the trail. “What’s wrong?”

My eyes stare at the bandage, and unease curls up in my stomach. It makes me nauseous, and I force my eyes back up to his face. There’s concern there, eyebrows scrunched together and a twisted mouth.

It takes everything in me not to shrink away.

* * *

R won’t stop limping. It’s not noticable if you’re not looking for it. Ever since I tried to make sense of what was underneath the bandage, I’ve been staring at it almost constantly. It was then that I noticed the slight jump in each step, the light breathing that comes out labored. R was working hard to not make it obvious, and if I hadn’t been looking so intensely I wouldn’t have seen it.

Last month’s escapade with those awful people and that nightmarish wrench must’ve caused more damage than I thought. I would’ve thought that the injury had healed by now, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.

He stops to sit on an upturned trash can, wincing before sighing in relief. I know that what’s underneath his wrap is his business, but we had already known each other for almost a year. There’s something about keeping a secret in plain sight that tends to dissolve trust. It was understandable before — nothing caused enough alarm to grant me permission to see — but now there might be something that needs a second opinion.

If only he’d let me in.

“Somethin' bothering you?” I decide to play dumb, to see his eyes flick in different directions while his brain formulates a lie.

“Just tired, I think.”

“You’re limping.” I push the conversation more, to his chagrin. I see his mouth twitch as he creates more lies.

“I guess I must’ve pulled it.” He leans back on his hands, confident in his solid deflection. I stare at him, unmoving. It was a solid excuse, but I know him better.

He sees through me. “Is there something you wanna ask?” It comes out slightly irritated.

This time, I get right to the point. “You’re injured.” I give a pointed look to his bandage.

He huffs, “I’m not,”

“Don’t lie to me, R. You’ve been limping all day.”

There’s that nasty look again, like the firing of a gun — quick and without preamble. It marrs his neutral expression. “It’s not your problem.” He spits it out, a slow fire burning under his skin. I can see his right hand twitch, a habit we all pick up living out here — a fight or flight response. I know he won’t actually reach for his gun, and it’s even less likely that he’ll shoot me, but I tense up anyway.

“Why do you insist on hiding? What could possibly be so important?”

And R, despite everything, said: “Hiding what?”

I pause, then: “ _THIS_!” In a fit of rage, I grabbed his bandaged leg and started to tear at the wrappings. R jerked back and this time his right hand did move, pulling out a pistol and placing it against my forehead before I could even register what happened. I froze in place.

Even though his hand held steady, his voice shook. “Stop. Please, Penn… Don’t.”

Regret replaced anger. I let his leg fall from my hands and turned away, walking a few steps and breathing deep. I could hear R’s desperate attempt to hide his crying, and the heavy click of a gun falling to the ground. He stops me before I turn around.

“Don’t look… I—” He heaves, and I imagine him fumbling with the bandage as he attempts to rewrap it.

I tear the sleeve off my shirt; It doesn’t come off nicely — leaves jagged edges and loose threads — but there’s still enough cloth to tie around my head and cover my eyes.

“I won’t look, but at least let me help you.” I follow R’s noise, until a hand reaches out to stop me. It tugs me lower until I’m kneeling on the ground. His hand trails up to my own, opening it up while a new wrap is placed on my palm. I close my hand over it, and use my other to skim the ground until I find the beginning of his boot. Up, up, and my fingertips grace over skin. Skin I have never seen, never touched, and never will. Not without his complete trust.

I pull away, bringing down both hands to start the process. I blindly search for the end of the fabric, and when I do, it becomes a methodical motion. Down, up, down, up, not once touching his skin, not once making his body tense. I hear him breathe above me, steady and relaxed, comfortable. When I reach the end of the wrap, I tuck it into preexisting layers and lean back. I don’t remove the blindfold until R pulls it off of me.

“I’m sorry.” My voice is quiet.

He smiles, pained.

“I know.”

* * *

Rain falls hard and heavy in the forest. In front of me is an old military fort, currently being used as a base for the most well-known organisation around. The wind is heavy, the tree tops swaying back and forth hypnotically. Much of the wind is blocked where I am nestled between trees, but It still gives enough air resistance that I have to readjust my weapon’s aim to account for it. The static sound of rain drops hitting leaves and splashing on the flooding forest floor doesn’t sit well with me. Being a sniper means several things: high ground and all my senses intact being two main ones.

I have neither of those. It was my initial concern when R and I arrived, but he remained persistent. Despite listing all the variables stacked against us, he simply shoved me forward enough to grab at the rifle secured on my pack. When I turned around to yell a question, he pushed the gun into my hands and said, “Stay here.”

Stay? That’s it? No plan, no warning, no listening to reason? I gritted my teeth as I saw his form disappear in the underbrush, his footsteps soon being drowned out by the storm.

In the present, I look through my scope — my hand blocks the rain from getting on the lens — and watch the two guards posted out front. They look bored, eyes appearing to scan the forest, but I could tell that they weren’t actually _looking._ I wouldn’t either, if in the position. There was no way to see anything coming with the rain, forest, and nightly atmosphere blocking their view. If not for the lights shining on the entrance and illuminating their silhouettes, I wouldn’t be able to see them either.

I was beginning to relax. Not completely, because the rain was soaking uncomfortably into my clothes, and the wind made it hard to drown out the noise enough for a nap, but enough that I didn’t know someone was sneaking up behind me until they had already pinned me to the ground. I thrashed about, tearing at the thick overcoat they had on and trying by best not to scream for R. He was likely long gone into the fortress, but here I was, being strangled on the forest floor.

There was something about that pitiful sentence that made me find my fight. I gathered my thoughts as best as I could and began to think. They didn’t have a weapon in their hands, but that didn’t mean they were armed. Instead, their hands came up to my face, one going over my mouth and the other around my neck. I let them focus on my upper body, leaving them exposed below. I kneed them in the groin — knowing that even a female would be hurt by the action — and was happily surprised that they were, in fact, male.

I rolled out from under them, feeling the mud coat my body, and took the butt of the rifle right to the side of their head.

“Ah, _fuck_!” A gravelly voice ripped through the sound of heavy rain. “You little shit!”

We tumbled through the forest. A well-timed kick here, a strategically-placed punch there, and all the while the storm continued. When I finally grabbed hold of the knife tucked away in their jeans, the world slowed a fraction. I was able to find an opening in their frantic hold and jab the blade directly through their neck. Something thicker than water trailed down my arms. I pushed the body off of me, letting it splash in a puddle on the ground. Water pelted my face as I laid there on the ground. Where was R? Was he snuck up on, too?

Energy pulsed through my body, and I sat up suddenly alert. _R_. I should be looking after him!

The ground slipped under my feet as I raced back to my position. My gun was being swallowed by mud and debris, but the glint of the lens still gave me its position. I tied it back onto my pack, taking off through the forest and trying my damn best to psych myself up for the impossible feat I was about to do.

The two guards stood to full attention at my noise just before one was taken out straight through the eye. The other pulled his automatic up and pushed the trigger as far as it would go. I ducked out of the way just in time to see the tree behind me get pelted with holes. Rain still fell even as I tried to focus my breathing and take aim.

It was a suicide mission. I knew this from the start — from the moment my foot kicked in the door and I heard more than saw the clicking of numerous guns. There was only a short window of time I had to duck behind barrels before the room erupted with the roar of automatic shots pelting the wall and ricocheting off metal. Shouts and commands emanated from a leader-type figure at the back. Mud and water trailed after me as I snuck along the wall and held the stolen guard’s gun close to my chest. The pillars supporting the ceiling kept me hidden enough as the shooting died down and the group began searching. My window was quickly closing.

I ducked behind another crate, keeping to the shadows, and it was then an idea was crafted. It was so simple, so plainly obvious that I didn’t even question _why_ a crate filled with straw and explosives was placed in plain sight. And the more I thought on it, the more I began to see the clues around me. Fresh tire tracks in the front of the base, unopened barrels and crates and boxes that cluttered around the room. It was the aftermath of a recent shipment, and I couldn’t believe my luck.

As I reached the end of the shadows where I hid, I pulled the pin off of three of the ten grenades I had stolen. The scattered group of armed soldiers turned to me in what seemed like slow motion as I rolled the explosives along the cement floor and booked it for the double doors of the next room.

“There they are!”

“Get ‘em!”

“What the fuck what that?”

“GRENADE!”

“Ah, shit—!”

The heavy doors slammed shut the moment a massive bang went off. Debris lodged itself in the metal, dents forming and the whole area shaking. Dust fell from the already-crumbling ceilings. I pulled up my automatic again and continued my trek. R had to be somewhere deep inside. His whole mission was the main person in charge. Where would they be?

A lone guard walked in from an adjoining hallway. There was an empty room to my left.

Tears streamed down the young boy’s face as a sickening crack resounded in the small storage room. His arms struggled against the zip ties and his feet scrambled for purchase. I focused on breathing even as I watched his pitiful attempt to put more distance between us. A single pale bulb illuminated his face but cast a shadow on mine. Nonsensical pleas fell from his lips. Tossed aside was a broken three-legged stool, the fourth one clutched in my hands.

I had originally hoped that the kid was smart enough to spill answers after being threatened with a bullet to the head, but there was something to be said about this organisation’s training process that left its soldiers loyal to a fault. After a few seconds of deliberation, I resorted to a piece of wood. It was much more difficult to inflict pain in a way that would yield the best results. I knew what I was doing was wrong — R and I both had traumatising moments of remembrance from our brush with Victor and his gang — but finding R was more important than…

_Than this boy’s health?_

The fight in me left just as quickly as it had appeared. The rush of adrenaline that onced fueled my blind violence vanished and in its place was nausea. Was I really going to hurt this boy in order to save another? A life for life? A philosophy that used to revolt me is now defining this moment.

The stool’s leg clattered to the floor, and my eyes felt heavy. I could see the figure in front of me hesitantly uncurl from his fetal position.

“Please… Just tell me what I need to know.”

I left the boy in the storage room anyway. I may not have it in me to outright torture to get answers, but I wasn’t about to have him alert the entire compound on my destination. Luckily, from what he told me, my target wasn’t too far. A turn here, then here, then here, then straight ahead. Everything looked the same and the dimly-lit corridors weren’t helping with navigation. Formations of more soldiers ran past as orders were shouted from commanders. They were all heading towards my last known location, which gave me more time to travel. Still, I was taking too long.

For the final stretch, I put my stolen weapon to use. I ran through the halls and many rooms without hiding. Guns fired all around me, and in turn I retaliated. Spent rifles were discarded as I picked up new ones. Cuts appeared all over my body and specks of blood dripped wherever I walked. My breathing was heavy and labored and still I couldn’t rest. I had to find R. I had to know if he was alive.

I stopped running when I found a large hallway with corpses littering the floor. Each one was taken out with a single shot to head. Each bullet hole was the exact calibre of R’s prized pistol.

My hands shook as I pushed open the curtain leading into the final room. A large puddle of blood surrounded the organisation’s ringleader. His face was beaten beyond recognition and his limbs looked broken. A single shot went clear through his forehead and embedded itself into the wall. The room smelled of decay and iron. I covered my nose with my jacket sleeve and gagged.

“Penn?”

I nearly wept at the sound of R’s voice. Something was off about it, though. I followed the sound to the other side of the large oak desk in the middle of the room and found out why. R was leaning against the furniture and looking like he wouldn’t move again. His face was paler than that night in the city, his hands shaking and a cold sweat had broken out all over his body. He held his pistol in a weak grip and his pack was being used as support on his bandaged leg.

He looked… R looked…

“You look awful,” I choked out, laughing even as tears pricked at my eyes. It quickly turned sour, and I dropped my supplies to the ground as I embraced him. “Damnit R, I thought I lost you. I thought…”

He let out a tired sigh, holding me back but with no real gusto. “I’m sorry, Penn. You deserved better.”

I fell silent. I waited for his correction, but it didn’t come. _Deserved_. I _deserved_ better. Said in that way people use to refer to something that no longer is. He _loved_. He _wanted_. He _lived_. He _was_. He _isn't_.

“R,” I started slow, retracting from him and trying to find my answers in his face. I only saw sadness. “What’s going on?”

He still spoke in that cryptid way I always hated. “I’m sorry for hiding from you, Penn. I should’ve just told you, but instead I strung you along and made you do something you didn’t even _want to_ , and—”

My nose stung, vision blurring until all I could do was listen as he spoke.

“I’ll explain everything now, Penn. I’m so sorry for _everything_ , I just— I didn’t want you to leave, or— or think of me any different. I was selfish because I didn’t want to lose _us_!”

“No, no, no, no, no…” I was crying now, but R continued.

“But now it’s too late, and — Penn, _listen_ — it’s too _late_ and I don’t want anything to remain unsaid.” He removed his hands from my face, a last effort to ground me, and instead went to the wrapping that covered his shin. He untucked an end and started to unravel it.

I grabbed ahold of his hands and tried to keep them from moving, but R was stronger and simply continued his up, down, up, down motions but it was _wrong_. I shouldn’t know what was under there. It was something that R didn’t want me to see, but he wouldn’t stop moving and each piece of skin that was uncovered dragged me in more despite everything in me screaming to turn away.

“No, stop, R, _stop_ , please!” My face was hot, and even though my eyes were staring at the steady uncovering of skin I couldn’t see past the tears clouding my vision.

I didn’t even know I had closed my eyes until R was coaxing them open. Soft strokes under my eyes that I melted into. He gently wiped away the water on my face. My eyelids fluttered open. I was greeted with his smiling face. He pulled me in until we were touching foreheads, our breathing evening out and intermingling.

“I want you to see, Penn. Please.”

My body shook as I detached from R, forcing my eyes to travel down his body until it landed on the only piece of him I had never seen. Never touched. Not till now.

It was horrible. Red and oozing and fresh. It was beyond any infection I’d ever seen. Something clinical in me wondered how R was even alive still, how he’d been able to keep this from me for so long. Another part of me was trying with little success to not vomit right then and there.

Still, I looked up to R and saw someone worth more. He wasn’t defined by his injury, and none of my memories were tainted now that I knew what was being hidden. Instead, it was a breath of relief. All doubts that he was hiding a dark past were now completely gone from my mind. He wasn’t hiding because of ulterior motives, but because he didn’t want to be reminded of it every moment. He didn’t want me to coddle him or make him sit when he would run instead. He didn’t want to be reminded of one blight in his life that could prevent him from his finale. He was living for each moment, the wound under wraps because it wasn’t who he was, what he was fighting for, what he was dying for.

“When I told you, in the subway, that I didn’t care if these people killed me, it was because of this. Because I didn’t want this infection to kill me first.”

My hand went to his knee, just above where his wound lay. “Is that still the case?”

He shook his head, “No. I want to amend it.”

The vague meaning of his words was made clear the moment he tugged loose the hunting rifle on my pack. He held it out to me, staring at me with the most loving eyes used in only the most intimate of moments. My world shattered even as I took the gun from his hands and got into position. He loosely held onto the barrel, pushing it down until it rested over the area his heart resided.

A loud sob wracked through my body, my vision clouding once more even though it didn’t matter. R was there to guide the bullet. R held his life and his death in the same hand.

“I trust you.” His other hand came up again to close over my trigger finger, not pressing, but instead a grounding weight. My breathing slowed.

Death is not a graceful thing. There’s no slow burning of a candle, no ease into finality. Just… death. Here one minute, gone the next. It arrives as fast as a gunshot, and lingers like the ringing in your ears. I feel his hand fall away from mine.

My eyes don’t look at his face, don’t look at his open wound. I pack up my things, pack up his, and sling both packs around my shoulders and take off down the hall. I run and in my wake I leave our legacy. He wants this organisation gone, did his part, and I will do mine. My pace doesn’t seem fast enough as explosions occur behind me. I hear shouting and screaming, but continue my break for the exit.

I drop the last one at the entrance of the compound, trudging through the forest and ducking behind a tree just as the world gets lit up by orange and yellow light.

Rain still falls.

* * *

The fire crackled and danced along the eroding walls of what used to be a library. A pile of books lie in the center of the heat, pages curling and crumbling. Rabbit roasts over the flames, held aloft by two chairs and a stake through its body.

I finish polishing a pistol that’s not mine, that hasn’t been fired for weeks. Satisfied, I turn it around, inspecting the details on the gun’s grip — intricate carvings that look like ivy. I turn to wrap it back up in cloth when something new catches my eye. My fingers trace over the letters, shaking with disbelief.

His name. It’s his name, carved on the side of his gun without a care in the world. How many times has he brandished this weapon for all to see, not even caring that his name was exposed. Maybe it’s the point. A statement he makes, flaunting such a well-kept secret to everybody without them knowing.

_“Something you wanna ask?”_

I hold the pistol close, my thumb running up and down those engraved letters. A smile plays at my lips.

“No,” I feel content. “Not anymore.”

**Author's Note:**

> Some Story Notes:  
> \- I have a lot to day about this. A lot.  
> \- The cause of R's injury is not explained because I couldn't find the right place to put it. (But if you really wanna know, he scraped his leg against something sharp and metal. That's it. Simple.)  
> \- I didn't know if R was going to die onscreen or if I'd just end the story ambiguously, but I guess we know now.  
> \- I'll probably come back to edit this a lot.  
> \- This work was originally titled "The Bandage," but I changed it since the whole point was for the reader to think the plot was something else until BAM! The plot was figuring out what was under R's Ace! Plot twist(?)!
> 
> I'm not gonna lie, I replayed Last of Us on my PS3 and it was the main inspiration for this. I tell you this at the end so you're not thinking of the game the whole time, haha.  
> Another inspiration were two specific scenes from CoD Advanced Warfare, but let's not talk about that.
> 
> (Also the fact that I've always wanted to write in a post-apocalypse setting, but never really had enough of a plot to make a full-length story. Thus, tidbits.)
> 
> Thanks for sticking through!


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